New Year Sunrise - Hadleigh Castle

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. Mine seemed to pass very quickly as we were busy with family and friends visiting. It was lovely to see people and spend time with them.

But I also went out walking when I could on some bright, frosty mornings. I can't stay indoors for very long! On the day after New Year, just as the sun was coming up, David and I decided to get plenty of fresh air by visiting Hadleigh Castle, once a medieval stronghold, and now a ruin high up on a hill with stunning views of the Thames estuary.

As it was a bank holiday, it was very quiet and still, with no traffic on the nearby roads, and no other visitors. It was the perfect time to wander around the site and make the most of those views.

Hadleigh Castle was built by Hubert de Burgh after King John granted him the land here in 1215. Hubert de Burgh was a military hero who became a powerful baron. He fell out of favour in the 1230s and the castle was seized by the king. It wasn't really occupied again, though, until the 1300s. Edward II started to take an interest in it, but it was Edward III who really made improvements here. Below is a sketch (from one of the display boards) of how the castle probably looked in 1370.

After Edward III, the castle wasn't used very much. It's built on London clay and suffers from subsidence (the castle itself is made from Kentish ragstone with mortar containing cockleshells from the estuary). The Tudor noble Richard Rich acquired the castle in the mid 1500s and after he began to rob it for its stone, it fell into disrepair. It was later used by Georgian revenue men to watch for smugglers on the estuary, but was never lived in again, It had become a romantic ruin, and as such, was famously painted by Constable in 1829.


There is the sound of starlings everywhere here, so I wonder if they roost in the ruins. Below the castle, in the estuary, is Two Tree Island, a nature reserve. I've not visited there yet, but it's supposed to be a good site for butterflies. It's on my list to visit this summer.

Back home, I feed the animals around dawn, and as we've had some frosty mornings recently, the sheep have been given extra food.  They come up to be fed with frost on their thick coats...

All the water troughs freeze overnight, and so the ice has to be broken...

The wild birds are ready for food. David made a new bird table (it attaches to an existing pole) over the holidays, and the birds found it at once...

I'm always hoping to see some rarer birds here, such as a brambling. I keep checking the little flocks of finches for them.

Spring seems a long way off on mornings like these, although I have noticed a little extra daylight in the afternoons this week. It's great to see the change, isn't it?

Happy New Year!

Autumn into Winter

These are my last images of this year's glorious autumn, which definitely feels over now. In the young wood, close to the smallholding, the colours were beautiful;

The sheep were out grazing quite happily; there has been little rain to drive them into the shelter;

But in the late summer/autumn drought caused the water level to drop in the local reservoir and it's been a surprise to see the tree stumps of the old farmland revealed once again (this land was flooded by the new reservoir in the 1950s)

This autumn/winter I love that I'm on a commuter route - a geese commuter route. Every morning they fly over in great skeins;

And then at sunset they fly back again to their roost;

My own geese are never interested in the wild geese flying low overhead. They have their own preoccupations - such as the return of Cador. This is my 'young' gander who had to be re-homed on the farm next door because he kept picking a fight with his father. Well - he's now back, in disgrace, because of his bad behaviour there, too. So I have to make sure that I separate the two males on the smallholding, which is giving me extra work (and a large headache...) It's like taking back a difficult teenager into the home...

Meanwhile here's something I've found a lot more soothing than squabbling geese - discovering a foxglove in my garden that flowered in October and throughout November;

I love the striking sunrises and sunsets of this time of year. This sunset blazed behind a large bonfire David and I had just lit. We could feel the frost in the air, and see the lights of the house across the dark field;

Now it's definitely not my favourite season, but I have to admit that winter has its moments, too.

Jobs for Autumn: Charcoal Burning and Planting Spring Bulbs

'The charcoal-burner has tales to tell.
He lives in the Forest,
Alone in the Forest;
He sits in the Forest,
Alone in the Forest.
And the sun comes slanting between the trees,
And rabbits come up, and they give him good-morning,
And rabbits come up and say, "Beautiful morning"...
And the moon swings clear of the tall black trees,
And owls fly over and wish him good-night,
Quietly over to wish him good-night...

And he sits and thinks of the things they know,
He and the Forest, alone together -
The springs that come and the summers that go,
Autumn dew on bracken and heather,
The drip of the Forest beneath the snow...

All the things they have seen,
All the things they have heard:
An April sky swept clean and the song of a bird...

Oh, the charcoal-burner has tales to tell!
And he lives in the Forest and knows us well.

A.A.Milne


These are the signs of autumn on our smallholding; the changing colour of the beautiful, mature oaks around our boundary, the hedges heavy with berries and rose hips, apples in the orchard, the air full of wood smoke from bonfires and log fires. And then there is the list of seasonal jobs that we hope to get ticked off before the weather turns cold and wet and miserable and we don't really want to be working outside.

The first of these autumn jobs is charcoal burning. A traditional charcoal burner lived alone or in a small community of other charcoal burners in the woods, looking after a kiln, day and night. David has built a kiln here, but we only burn a small amount at a time, so we're able to keep an eye on it over a few hours. Our kiln is basically an old oil drum, with a lid and chimneys, that has been placed by our bonfire. To start the process, seasoned hornbeam logs are stacked carefully in the kiln so that there is a hole in the centre.  The hole has been left so that hot coals from the bonfire can be added. Then the logs are lit.

The fire starts to burn, with flames visible out of the top of the kiln and smoke mingling with the misty autumn air. It's important to judge at this point when to put the lid on - too soon and the wood doesn't turn into charcoal properly, too late and the logs turn to ash. The lid is then sealed with ash from the bonfire, so that oxygen doesn't seep into the kiln preventing the logs from being properly 'cooked'.

Hours later, the process is finished. The charcoal is removed and left to cool and then it's stacked by the barbecue, ready for a warm, summer evening in 2017!

Some of the finished charcoal, ready for a barbecue

As the charcoal burning is taking place, I'm planting spring bulbs and other flowers. Because we've planted so many trees and hedges here, we've inadvertently transformed open, sunny spots into areas of woodland garden. The plants I'll be introducing to these areas will be the plants that'll thrive in dappled shade; so, for example, I'll be planting more cyclamen as well as several clumps of lily of the valley that my godmother has kindly given to me from her own garden.

Gone planting...

In some of the remaining open areas I'm going to plant more daffodils. I like daffodils - I can't say that they're a favourite flower of mine, but they are part of the spring landscape and I'd miss them if they weren't there.

Actually, the truth is that I am missing daffodils because I discovered last year that we now have daffodil pests...

Our Suffolk and Cheviot sheep have never touched daffodils in their 14 or so years of being here, but our new Ryelands eat them as they come up, because they're incredibly greedy sheep and will eat anything. I was slow to realise what had happened, but I did twig, sometime towards the middle of last April, that I couldn't see the usual splash of yellow along the edge of the moat. What I did see was two very fat brown sheep. So - because we've recently doubled our number of Ryelands - I'll be re-planting daffodils this autumn to replace the lost flowers and they'll be planted in secure, sheep-proof areas.  And as for the Ryelands...fortunately they quite like stinging nettles, so hopefully, without daffodils to tempt them, they'll concentrate on the weeds instead.

After the Harvests and the Apple Thief

The honey harvest is over. I've taken all the honey I want from the hives and I'm now pouring it into jars, ready for sale. I'm not greedy; I've only taken a fraction of the honey I could take because I like to leave a lot for the bees. After all, this honey is the result of their hard work - not mine - and I don't want to raid all their food because they need it for winter stores.

I've been fascinated by this year's honey because it's much darker than usual. I'm really not sure what the bees have been foraging on, but they've loved something flowering locally that has produced honey with a deep, rich colour. And it's not only my bees that have been heading to and from this mystery source. I've been talking to a fellow beekeeper in the village and she's found exactly the same in her hives. We're both very keen to find out now where the honey has come from.

This year's honey ready to be extracted from the comb

The dark colour can sometimes mean it's honeydew honey. Honeydew is a sugary liquid secreted by sap-sucking insects on leaves - and honeydew honey has a strong, slightly bitter flavour.  As my honey is not as dark and is sweeter than this honey, I'm still none the wiser as to where it's come from.

So I'll just have look into what my bees have been up to this summer. In the meantime, they're foraging quite happily now with the bumblebees on some late summer flowers, such as single-flower dahlias, helenium, japanese anemones and verbana.

The other harvest has also taken place in the surrounding fields and we've collected bales of fresh straw from a local farmer for animal bedding.  I love the smell of fresh straw; it's a smell of late summer. The straw is now stacked in the barn with our winter logs.

Straw and logs stored for winter - and Harry watching a rabbit hole 

In the garden, we're picking plenty of vegetables such as tomatoes and courgettes, so there are lots of tomato and courgette-based meals here at the moment.  Some of the apples are ready to pick, too, but we've found we have a problem with our apple harvest, because apples in our new orchard are disappearing almost as fast as they're ripening. Why is this happening? Well, it seems we have a thief among us - and I've been watching him try his luck.

This is the technique. First of all try and knock the young tree to loosen the apples - and act casually, as though you're not up to anything...

Then rub up against a tree, which might be more successful...

Gaze up at the tree for inspiration...

Then just take a leap...

And success. you've grabbed an apple!

It's a good job the other sheep aren't following his bad example, otherwise I don't think we'd have any apples left.

Lambs, Lavender and Robber Bees

The new lawnmowers have arrived! I haven't named them yet, so they're still known as 'the lambs'. They settled into the flock at once and have already guessed that I mean food (they've been getting treats). They're always getting separated and will call for ages across the field, until they work out how to reach each other again.

We have a mix of ages now in the flock, from our ancient sheep (a stiff and ambling fourteen years) to these new lambs (just over four months). But it's not the sheep but the bees that are preoccupying me at the moment, because I suspect that one colony is robbing the other. Why do I think this? Because I've been watching my two hives closely and observed a few key signs. Firstly, that one hive doesn't have much food - even though there is a healthy, foraging colony in there - while the colony next to it is doing very well. This colony has always been strong and brought in plenty of food, but I believe they've been topping up their stores with stolen honey from raids next door.

The main clue that robbing is going on is from my observations of the 'robbed' colony. The 'home' bees are flying directly in to the entrance unchallenged, but there are also bees that are flying in a sort of zigzag motion before the hive. These are the robbers looking for an opportunity to get by the guard bees at the entrance. Sometimes they'll get caught and a fight will follow, but often they're getting through the defences and into the hive.

So what can I do? It's very difficult to stop robbing once a colony gets the habit and I wonder whether this began when the 'robbed' hive was knocked over in the spring and their stores were exposed. I have to do something, anyway, otherwise the 'robbed' colony could eventually lose heart, give up and decline. So I'm going to begin by reducing the entrance of the 'robbed' hive to one bee space, which means it'll be more easy to defend. I'm also going to try something I've only just read about, which is to cover the hive with a wet sheet. Apparently, the 'home' bees will find a way in under the sheet, but the robber bees are put off by it.  I hope it works, because not only are these poor bees facing robber bees, but before the month is out, they'll have to contend with aggressive wasps, too.

When all my bees are foraging beyond the apiary, they're finding the lavender we have in the garden. Last year we planted lots of both butterfly and English lavender before the house so that the bees can forage on the butterfly lavender in May and June - and then they can move onto the English lavender in July and August. Lavender is one of the best bee plants - it's great for honey bees, bumblebees and solitary bees.

Other insects love lavender too, such as this painted lady butterfly

Some of the birds are also interested in it. They're welcome there - as long as they don't destroy the plants!

I also spotted these new visitors by the lavender bushes last week. I don't know where they've come from but it can't have been far because the ducklings are so small.

They were last seen wandering along the lane towards next door's orchard, where there's lots of long grass that should give them plenty of cover and, hopefully, keep them safe.  

In May... Orchids, Bees and Lambs

Green-winged orchids have been flowering in a local meadow. At first glance, the meadow looks as if there's only grass growing there.  But on closer inspection, there's a purple sheen over the grass. These are the orchids.

When I wandered through the meadow last week, I wanted to see if they were green-winged orchids (anacamptis morio) rather than early-purple orchids (orchis mascula - also flowering now). I did this by looking at the leaves. The leaves of the green-winged orchids don't have the blotches that are found on the leaves of the early-purple orchids. The petals are different, too. The green-winged orchid has a 'hood' with a pattern of lines, like veins.

The green-winged orchid grows in traditional meadows and grassland, and as there isn't much of that around here now, they're becoming less common. Fortunately, there are some local initiatives to encourage them, so hopefully these beautiful flowers will continue to grow in this part of the world.

There were also bees buzzing in the meadow, but I think most of my honeybees are still on the oilseed rape. Some of the bees, though, are bringing in pollen that could be hawthorn.

I can see hawthorn flowering everywhere at the moment, but I have mixed feelings about the smell of it. I like that it reminds me of this time of year (and it's also known as the May Tree) but it's not the most pleasant smell in the world. In the Middle Ages, it was thought that this blossom smelled like the Great Plague and that bringing it into the house would bring illness and death. But Medieval folk must have also loved hawthorn as it was at the heart of May Day celebrations (maypoles were made of it, the green man had a wreath of it).

I love hawthorn, too.  It's a beautiful, native tree and great for wildlife, although it's an unreliable source of bee-food. Apparently, the weather conditions have to be right for the bees to take something from it.

My bees are also on the horse chestnut. The lovely, white candles are out and the bees are bringing in a brick-red pollen from them, which looks quite striking in the comb.

The horse chestnut candles are fascinating; as the flower develops a yellow blotch on the lower petals changes colour from orange to pink. When the flower has been pollinated the blotch turns red, and as bees can't see the colour red, they are no longer attracted to the flower (in other words, it's a signal from the flower to the bee that it's already been pollinated).

We have many, mature horse chestnuts around us here, and we also planted one on the smallholding about sixteen years ago. Although the horse chestnut isn't native (and was introduced to the UK in the seventeenth century), I think it's a wonderful addition to the countryside.

Also on the smallholding, here are a couple of the sights I've enjoyed this May...

Geum in flower

Orange tip butterflies - this is a female

And the cuckoos have returned. That is, I've heard cuckoos but not seen one on the smallholding. There are (it seems) two cuckoos calling around here this spring, but they're not close, and now all the leaves have come out they're hidden in the trees anyway. So the only photo I've been able to take is of a distant one calling...

And finally, our lambs are growing up fast. We visited the breeder not long ago to see how they were getting on.  It won't be long until they'll join our small flock where - if they're like their Ryeland cousins - they won't stop eating.  I've never seen anything like it.  The Suffolks and the Cheviot haven't eaten half as much, but our two Ryelands are always eating  When we visited the breeder, three of the lambs came up to her van at once looking for food...

Three again watching my camera (is it food?!)

And a last, hopeful stare...

We should be bringing the lambs home in about a month. I don't think we'll have a problem with long grass this year!